Announcement of the Formation of a Bureau of Majority Committees[2]

Written:Written before October 20 (November 2), 1904Published:First published in 1940 in theProletarskaya Revolutsiyamagazine, No. 2.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      publisher??,pubdate??,

      Moscow,Volume 7,

      pages491-496.Translated:Fineberg AbrahamTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2002).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
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Thecrisis in the Party is dragging on interminably and becoming
      ever more difficult to resolve. The adherents of the majority
      have repeatedly stated in the press their views concerning the
      causes of the crisis and the means by which it could be
      ended. The statement of the

			     twenty-two,[1]which was supported by
      a number of committees (the Odessa, Ekaterinoslav, Nikolayev,
      Riga, St. Petersburg, and Moscow committees and the Caucasian
      League), by the declaration of the

 nineteen,[3]and
      by the majority members, abroad gave a full and precise
      exposition of the majority’s programme. Everyone at all
      acquainted with the development of the crisis and at all
      concerned for the Party’s honour and dignity has long realised
      that the only way out is a Party congress. But now the new
      declaration by a section of the Central Committee and the new
      decisions of the Party Council aggravate the division in the
      Party still more. The Central Committee members who have
      deserted to the minority have not shrunk from the grossest
      violation of the rights of those members of the Central
      Committee who remain on the side of the majority. In proclaiming
      its reconciliation policy the new Central Committee has not only
      failed to take account of the wishes of the majority, but has
      totally ignored the latter and entered into a compact with the
      minority alone, and moreover by means of private, secret
      transactions. Anyone sincerely desiring a reconciliation would
      first of all bring together all the warring, contending,and mutually incensed, and that means calling a Party
      congress. To talk of peace and fear a congress, to go about
      peace-making and at the same time hold up the bogey of a split
      because of the minority’s probable defeat at the Third Congress
      also, is to be a hypocrite, to try to force the caprice of an
      6migr6 circle on the Party workers in Russia, to sanctify with
      the specious slogan of peace a complete betrayal of the
      majority. In the name of peace the new Central Committee is
      breaking up organisations which have the audacity to want a
      congress. In the name of peace the new Central Committee
      proclaims the publications of the majority to be non-Party
      publications and refuses to supply them to the committees. In
      the name of peace the new Central Committee is injecting a
      squabbling element into the decisions of the Party Council,
      which dares to talk in print about “deceit” on the
      part of comrades whose actions have not been investigated yet
      and who have not even been presented with the charges made
      against them. The Party Council is now directly falsifying the
      opinion and verdict of the Party membership, by having the
      committee resolutions scrutinised by a Central Committee
      notoriously hostile to a congress, by casting suspicion on these
      resolutions, delaying their publication, gerrymandering the
      number of votes, arrogating to itself the congress prerogative
      of declaring mandates invalid, and disorganising positive work
      by stirring up the local committees’ “peripheral
      organisations” against them. Meanwhile the centrally
      conducted positive work is also at a standstill because the
      Central Committee and Central Organ are engrossed in resisting a
      congress.

Nocourse remains to the majority committees and organisations but to
      unite to fight for a congress, against the so-called central
      institutions of the Party, which in fact are directly flouting the
      Party. We are making a beginning of such unity by forming a Bureau of
      Majority Commit tees, on the initiative and by the common consent of
      the Odessa, Ekaterinoslav, Nikolayev, Riga, St. Petersburg, and Moscow
      committees.

Ourslogan is the fight for the party spirit against the circle
      spirit, the fight for the consistent revolutionary line against
      zigzags, confusion, and a reversion toRabocheye Dyelo-ism, afight in the name of proletarian organisation and discipline against
      the disrupters of organisation.

Ourimmediate objects are to build up ideological and
      organisational unity of the majority in Russia and abroad, to
      support and promote in every way the publishing house of the
      majority (started abroad by Comrades Bonch-Bruyevich and
      Lenin), to combat the Bonapartism of our central institutions,
      to ensure the correctness of measures for convening the Third
      Congress, and to assist the positive work of the committees,
      which is being disrupted by the agents of the editorial board
      and the new Central Committee.

Bureau of Majority Committees

InRussia the Bureau can be contacted through the majority
      committees, and abroad through the Bonch-Bruyevich and Lenin
      publishing house.

[1]See pp. 454–61 of this volume.—Ed.

[2]TheAnnouncement of the Formation of a Bureau of Majority Committeeswas sent to Russia in a letter to Bogdanov on October 20 (November 2), 1904;
      it was not published.

[3]Thedeclaration of the nineteen, published by the Moscow Party
      Committee in October 1904 under the title “Appeal to Members
      of the R.S.D.L.P.”, was a response to the appeal “To the Party”
      issued by the conference of twenty-two Bolsheviks under Lenin’s
      leadership.